Week 6: Sabbath Mission - Day 36

In my last post I hinted at the heart of this experiment. When I invited you to join me in this experiment, it wasn't just about practicing sabbath through our re-dedication of time. It also had to do with reconnecting to the mission of the church. The church is who we are together and in the world. The church is what we do and how we live our Christ's mission in the world.

For our final days in this 40 day experiment, I will dive more directly into the connection of sabbath and mission. I will also create a survey, similar to the one many of you took before this blog began, as a way to share and assess our growth, understanding, discoveries, and reorientation(s).

This focus nicely fits the theme of this week of the new year. This is a time when many people create new year's resolutions, which is another way of reorienting oneself to a personal mission. So today, I invite you to begin creating your "new year's mission". You may do something similar to the list shared by Spirituality and Practice below, or use their list as a jumping off point for something different. You may wish to look over the past few weeks and use those themes as a place to start. Maybe this experiment has inspired you to make other changes that you'd like to implement? Today is your day to begin putting it into mission language. When you consider your "new year's resolutions" how do they fit with sabbath rhythms and Christ's mission in the world?

If you'd like to open up this conversation with your kids, there's a few ways you can get them thinking and talking. One quick idea: Use post its! Dedicate a wall or space in your house where they can add their hopes for a new year with pictures or words. Invite them to add something new every day for the entire week. This can be an easy family activity. Maybe you can have your own post-it color stack so it becomes really colorful. Set a family time at the end of the week where you read through all of them together. Group the similar hopes and ideas together. Talk about how these things are important for a good year. Talk about what's missing too. Pray together and put the post its in an envelope marked 2014. At the end of next year, take them out and read through them together again. Talk about the year together. Which hopes became a reality? Which changed? Set up a space to do it all again for 2015!

Rest & Distraction - Day 34

There are many obstacles to rest, but one I haven't mentioned yet has to do with our use of leisure. It is in our fumbled up relationship with rest and leisure that leaves us confused, easily distracted, and unable to form a healthy use of rest in our lives. Leisure is not a bad thing. Distraction is not necessarily a bad thing in our lives either. It all has to do with our relationship and use of these two things. We need a strong understanding of the roles they play in our lives. When these things are mixed up without definition or priority, it's easy to slip beyond leisure into lazy. Our fear of laziness or being perceived as lazy then becomes another thing in the way of developing healthy rest in our lives.

Rest & Distraction - Day 33

I was listening to a review of Amir ElSaffar's new jazz album Alchemy. In it, Kevin Whitehead writes, "Every idea becomes new again in time." When I heard that, I immediately thought, "Sabbath!"

Every idea becomes new again in time.

There are so many ways this resonates with the gifts of sabbath. There are so many ways music exemplifies sabbath living. Even the words I've found myself using are musica. Rhythm. Rest. Breath.

Imagine a song without any rests. Imagine a sentence without commas or periods. Imagine a piece of art without the use of white or black. Watch a bird in flight. It isn't constantly flapping its wings. Rest is embedded into all areas of life. Sabbath is for creation.

The practice of Lectio Divina uses rest and time as much as reading and speaking. Practice Lectio Divina today with a favorite Bible passage, poem, or quote. It can be a personal practice, or one shared with a small group.

What is a dream or idea that you have carried with you your entire life? How has it become new to you again and again in time?

Rest & Distraction - Day 32

When we're honest about the rest we need we are also honest about the ways our distractions keep us from rest. Imagine a spectrum. On one side of the spectrum we find focus, on the other, distraction. Rest is where we find our perspective. Too much focus can pull us from the life that surrounds us, the world, its experiences, creatures, relationships. Distraction is focus without roots, attention flitting from one moment to another. The gift of rest is in how it can meet us wherever we are, in the depths of our focus or in the flurry of distraction. Sabbath living is attuned to the rhythms of rest. We need sabbath everyday, for many reasons, but especially because we are in such a battle against distraction.

Rest & Distraction - Day 31

With this being Christmas day, I couldn't help but think about the beauty of a resting child. Some of the first moments in Jesus' life involved resting. As Jesus grew into adulthood rest remained important; though, in different ways.

Think about some of the special and important things that have happened in your life while you were resting.

Enjoy this Christmas week and rest...

Rest on the Flight of Egypt by Orazio Gentileschi

Week 5: Rest & Distraction - Day 29

In one of my first posts I briefly wrote about my relationship with the daily vitamin. Consistency has been a difficult thing for me with things like that. Turns out that's happened with the blog as well and I missed a couple days last week. I'm also not super good with numbers. They don't hold a lot of meaning for me in my brain. So with that combination, we find ourselves on day 29 (whatever that means). More importantly, we find ourselves on a new week with a new theme.

Rest and

D                      i       

       s                        t           r

a                                                 c                                      t                             i           on.

Peace & Bitterness - Day 25

Our King of Peace

I was struck by the last verse in O Come O Come Emmanuel, one of my favorite Christmas hymn:

O come, Desire of nations, bindIn one the hearts of humankind;O bid our sad divisions cease;And be for us our King of Peace.

Peace & Bitterness - Day 24

Could there be peace?

Peace & Bitterness - Day 23

Yesterday was a hard day for me. I won't go into all of the reasons, but it was not an easy day for me to get through. I took a minute to visit our facebook group and was immediately grateful. Our friend Tom shared his images of peace, the people that fill that peaceful space, and the daily life-work it takes to make this peaceful perspective a reality. I was struck, not just by the beautiful imagery and honesty, but by the way even reading about his peace brought me peace as well. What a powerful thing, that by sharing our visions of peace, no matter how unique they may be to our perspective, we can pass the peace on to someone else. I am still resting in awe over this.

Just a Minute

I need to take a momentary  hiatus from the Experiment this week. I will be back on my usual schedule very, very soon. If you started this Experiment later, take this as your opportunity to catch up. Until then, take a little break from your day and enjoy the jellies!

Visit: http://vimeo.com/67944891 Or watch the embedded video below.


Jellyfish in Monterey Bay Aquarium are mesmerising from Moos Mood on Vimeo.

Week 4: Peace & Bitterness - Day 22

Peace is another daunting task; a daunting perspective; a daunting commitment. It's a nice answer to the question of what we would most like to see more of in the world, but much more difficult to fully grasp, let alone live out, on a daily basis. Why is it that when we intentionally focus on sabbath, we have to face all of these things that do not have easy answers?*

Worship & Idolatry - Day 20

I return to the question, what makes worship, worship? Is worship about the people who gather together for a common purpose? Is worship the amount of devotion from these people? Can worship happen without a group of people?

Worshp & dolatry - Day 19

A post wthout the use of an _. A lesson n dolatry.  ddn't ntend to wrte a post n ths way, just ddn't have my keyboard to plug nto my laptop when the dea for today's blog came to me. (f you ddn't already know, my laptop keyboard fzzed out on me ths week.) Funny how refreshng t can be to type wthout the _ key. Personally,  get exausted by that letter blarng at me all over the place. n a world where so many thngs are sold to us wth that one letter to provde mmedate ownershp... here's a refreshng chance for me to escape. 

But to the real point of today's blog...

Want to understand worshp? Read the Psalms. Here's a Psalm for you today. 

Worship & Idolatry - Day 18

A poem by Wendell Berry from his book, A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems (1977 - 1997)

Worship & Idolatry - Day 17

Talking about worship is a lot like talking about music. We all have different tastes and different understandings of what makes "good" worship or "good" music. In some ways it's a little insane of us to attempt mixing the two every Sunday. But what would worship be without music? It's hard to imagine. So we continue to attempt to mix it up. Here's the thing. "Good" worship and "good" can be distractions from appreciating worship and music for what they are. Sometimes we are so caught up in our judgment of what is "good" that we miss the deeper message, deeper gift, that is being held there.

Week 3: Worship & Idolatry - Day 15

Like sabbath, worship and idolatry are two words that we may think we know, but probably haven't spent much actual time defining in our lives. Instead, we probably have some generalized assumptions that make up our working definitions. The more generalized our working definitions, the easier it is for us to keep thoughts of worship and idolatry at an arm's distance, never fully immersing ourselves in what those definitions mean for our lives.

Care for Creation & Confession - Day 13

I began my day celebrating the life of a much loved disciple of Jesus who lived his life sharing the good news of Christ. He is an example of someone who cared for creation by caring for the people in his life. He sent out daily emails with scripture and prayers, visited friends in the hospital (even when he was in the hospital himself!), led Bible studies, was living proof of the healing power of prayer, and did so much more... This memorial service inspired today's activity.

Name at least one person in your life who has inspired you and shown you what it means to care for creation. As I wrote about earlier this week, there are many ways we care for creation. Please share with us in the comments below, in our facebook group, or in another small group. Who is this person, or who are these people? How have they shown care for creation? How have they inspired you?

Care for Creation & Confession - Day 12

Confession is not an easy practice, but one that is essential to the practice of sabbath. Confession can be miraculous for relationships. Confession can be a gift to yourself. Confession can be revolutionary for a community. Confession is a place where we own up to the ways we have not lived up to our original calling to care for creation. We hurt ourselves. We hurt each other. We lose ourselves in the crowd and "go with the flow" rather than call to question the status quo.

Care for Creation & Confession - Day 11

Care for creation is a big task. The more we spend time fathoming the scope this task, the clearer we see we cannot do this alone; nor were we created to. I'd like to add some more words from Norman Wirzba to our dialogue. His book,  Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight quickly became one of my favorite resources during my research. In the second chapter, "The  Meaning of Sabbath," Wirzba spends some time discussing Sabbath Justice. In reference to Deuteronomy and Exodus, he takes some time discussing the vision of Sabbath found there and its implications for a society.

Caring for Creation & Confession - Day 10

Recognizing the ways we do and don't care for creation says something about how we live every day. When we recognize our connection to creation, we live with more care.

Care for Creation & Confession - Day 9

Connecting care for creation to sabbath is rooted in the first creation story found in Genesis. After six days of creating goodness, pausing after each creation to speak of the goodness of creation, God finished. Instead of working, God rested and blessed the seventh day. God gives an entire day for holy-making and blessing.

And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation. Genesis 2:2-3

In the second creation story in Genesis chapter 2, we aren't given the same linear storytelling with each day of creation building upon the earlier days. Instead, we are given a scene. We are given a physical relationship between God and creation. Where is sabbath in this story? I can't help but wonder if sabbath blessing is found in God's footsteps as God walks through creation, enjoying it, connecting with it. The God of this creation story is physically planting trees, breathing into mounds of dust, to create life. Adam and Eve are created to be partners with God and each other, working side by side to care for creation. There's something about this Eden scene that shows sabbath as a state of being, a life perspective, rather than a focus on time.

Week 2: Care for Creation & Confession - Day 8

We've entered the Sabbath Experiment with gratitude and letting go. Continuing on in the process leads us to another aspect of sabbath, Care for Creation & Confession. In my life, I've found it's difficult to truly care for another (person, place, thing...) without also facing the ways in which we have failed it. However, as humans, we are fallible. We mess up. Sometimes those mess ups feed into bigger consequences than we ever want to admit or recognize. Consider our oceans, farming practices, and over all use of our resources... The interest of money and quick turn around has led us to make choices that may not be the best in the long run. So, while we give gratitude for the beautiful gifts that surround us, we also need to take steps to care for these gifts. We also need to take steps to confess the ways we have not honored these gifts.